Update From Editor Peter Sciretta: In 2005, Disney and Pixar were gearing up to split ways and was Disney Animation was creating its own and very different version of Toy Story 3 without John Lasseter and gang. A ton of new images have found their way online from the abandoned version of Toy Story 3. Hit the jump to see the abandoned Toy Story 3 concept art images now.

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How much do you know about Circle 7 Animation? Depending upon your level of interest in Disney projects that never were, the answer may be ‘nothing.’ Circle 7 was an animation house set up in 2005 with the intent to create one sequel per year for Pixar-created films that were owned by Disney, but the studio only existed for a year.

Toy Story 3 was to be the first project, and Monsters, Inc. 2 would have been the second. We’ve covered the latter film before; it had the working title Lost in Scaradise, and you can see concept art above. Neither of those films happened — not in their Circle 7 incarnations, anyway — because the mid-aughts rift between Disney and Pixar, created by then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner, was bridged. Eisner stepped down earlier than planned, Bob Iger became Disney CEO in his wake, and Iger set up a deal to buy Pixar. Two months later, in March 2006, Circle 7 was closed without ever finishing a film.

Bob Hilgenberg and Rob Muir, known colloquially as Bob & Rob, pitched a script for the Circle 7 version of Toy Story 3, and were hired to write the Circle 7 Monsters, Inc. sequel. They turned in a very well-liked script, which got them a gig working on the early, never-produced Toy Story 3 after all. Now Bob & Rob have consented to an interview in which they detail the history of Circle 7. Read More »

Back in 2005, when it seemed like Disney and Pixar would be dissolving their partnership, Disney set up a studio called Circle 7 to take advantage of the fact that it still held the right to make sequels of Pixar’s film under a previous agreement. The studio was shut down in 2006, once Disney agreed to acquire Pixar, but not before Circle 7 employees had already begun work on sequels like Monsters, Inc. 2 and Toy Story 3. Circle 7’s plans for those films were scrapped completely; the Toy Story 3 that came out last year and the Monsters, Inc. 2 that’s due out next year bear no resemblance to Circle 7’s earlier ideas.

Yesterday, however, two of the screenwriters behind Circle 7’s Monsters, Inc. 2: Lost in Scaradise — Bob Hilgenberg and Rob Muir, or Bob & Rob, as they call themselves — offered an intriguing glimpse at the never-produced film when they posted some of the artwork for their unproduced script. See images and read the concept after the jump.